Book #3: The Fortune Teller

Book #3 in my series, The Fortune Teller, is loosely based on Super Chiller #3, The Carnival Ghost. (In that, there is a carnival, and a fortune teller).

As we see here, Liz is able to rotate her head like an owl and be afraid of the titular ghost behind her. Also, an Aloha shirt is appropriate After-Christmas Scary-Story wear (in California, sure). (This story takes place after Christmas, which is probably Christmas #2 or 3 in the series. Not sure why Christmas is needed to start the story, except to indicate that the carnival comes to town on winter break. Later, the scary stories took place around Halloween, properly.) 

When I read this originally, I thought the creepy carnival and the fortune teller (who wasn't creepy in the book, they just thought she was) were more interesting than the boring ghost (who didn't even have a proper back story and was "evil" for no good reason*), so I made my character Piper (the witch from Books #1 and 2) the fortune teller. She and Tobias, who poses as her assistant (who is creepy, but not in child-molester way, natch**), haunt the carnival with the help of some vampire characters created by my childhood best friend, who hold the twins in their thrall, instead of the emotional-abuser ghost controlling Elizabeth. Ghosts are boring in SVT, anyway. (and the Super Chillers were mostly Ghosts, alas). At the end Liz has to point out that vampires are too sexy for books with a fourth-grade reading level, haha (they never did vampires in SVT, only ghosts, curses, Haunted Burial Ground, "Magic" (Haunted) Pen, and Evil Halloween Mask from a Dog's Mouth).***

BTW: I have ratings on GoodReads?? Not to sound desperate, but if anyone is reading my books, please comment on my blog or something. Thx for giving 4 stars (Book 1) and 5 stars (book 2), TELL ME MORE. (Also the moderator of Sweet Valley Unlimited on Facebook has ordered my 3 books, but I haven't heard from her so I assume she HATED THEM).

*also she died on a Ferris wheel before they were even invented, AHAHAHA. bad research skills, ghostwriter!
**It's surprising, when I go back and read these books, how many times there was a "creepy" adult and I didn't think much of it, because I was a kid. Like the books were saying, don't worry your pretty little head about this character, because the twins Always Use Good Judgement (or are fictional characters, so they have a kind of immunity to danger). Snort. Although in Super Chiller #6, The Curse of the Golden Heart, there were TWO creepy males. One of them turned out to be a scuba instructor/ cursed ghost (everyone knows, ghosts are eunuchs, so he wouldn't have tried anything), and the other was just after the treasure (of course there's a treasure). The latter one, the twins met alone on a pier and then were like, maybe we shouldn't have done it that way. Ya think? Luckily Nothing Bad Happened because they are the main characters and it wasn't in the plot.
***Oh, and Fake Zombie Girl Who Didn't Age for 25 years and Mysteriously Haunted Our Dreams.

SVT Super Chiller #5: The Curse of the Ruby Necklace

I already mentioned that when I was 11 I bought a boxed set of Sweet Valley Twins Super Chillers, #1-4, along with the latest one, (hot off the press! remember bookstores? This was from Border's) #5, The Curse of the Ruby Necklace. Then I curled up in a corner and read all of them while sucking on Gobstoppers. (Now, I can't stand the thought of eating candy that isn't chocolate... but I was 11, so yeah).
The Curse of the Ruby Necklace was the one I liked the most, although now when I read it (and deface it), it seems sloppy. The twins get bit parts in a movie, and naturally there's an unsolved mystery for them to get involved in on the side. Danger! Intrigue! All at age 12! The Movie People say they couldn't find Hilda (the suspected murderer, back in 1944) and assume she died. Elizabeth (the more logical, smarter twin) points out that if Hilda was a girl in the 40s (and it's now the 90s), Hilda wouldn't be that old and is probably still alive. Nope, The Movie People say, we searched with the police and couldn't find her. BECAUSE WE DIDN'T HAVE A GHOST TO TELL US THAT SHE GOT MARRIED. Yep, the movie people didn't even consider that Hilda could have taken her husband's name... LIKE MOST PEOPLE DO. Movie People are stoopid. So when the twins need to find Hilda to solve the mystery, they just look up marriages in old newspapers (on microfilm, in the library! Movie People can't be bothered with such heavy research). HILDA DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO SKIP TOWN BEFORE GETTING MARRIED. Which is explained in the book as "returning to the scene of the crime." And yet no one bothered her for years and years, she was able to lay low until the Super Twins (and their tagalong cousin Robin) needed to find her to figure out why the necklace is haunting them with nightmares (guess you can't get Lucid with a cursed necklace under your pillow). They easily track her down and learn that (shocker), she didn't kill Lillian. Derp.

Jessica looks stoned on the cover.* Also, when I was eleven I wished the cover illustrator had made their outfits more "even". Like Jessica is too bare and Liz is too covered up... but that's clearly a representative of their personalities,  HA... Also, Liz is wearing her watch too high on her wrist. It's sitting on her carpal.
ETA: Elizabeth is allowed to lie when she's being controlled by a supernatural object (the cursed necklace.) She tells her science teacher that she found an old bottle and uses chemicals unsupervised (Don't try this at home kids!!) to clean up said not-bottle-but-a-haunted-piece-of-jewelry (so it can sparkle at her ominously and control her more). Jessica, on the other hand, will lie without thinking twice because she's a crafty bitch. The necklace, of course, doesn't care who does its bidding as long as the derpy mystery gets solved. (This is important to note when reading my stories. Elizabeth can lie about supernatural events, even though she usually feels horrible for lying, unlike Jessica who has no soul.)

*OK full disclosure, I have never been stoned. I have lead a somewhat sheltered life due to various medical conditions and in high school/ college when most people were experimenting with drugs, I was worrying about when my next brain surgery would be. Although, in high school someone said I looked stoned, so there's that. (I wasn't stoned, I was depressed and had chronic pain.)